grind-house

Grind house

Grind house (also known as GrindHouse, Grindhouse, Gryndhouse, Mühlehaus) is a type of electronic house music that conforms to a set of rules known as The Ten Commandments of Grind House. The style is characterized by the absence of harmonic progression, a kick drum placed on both the downbeat and backbeat of every measure, the application of reverberation on the kick drum, heavily processed percussion, the absence of non-musical phrases or samples, and monotonic bass lines which also serve as the music's only melodic content. The style was developed in rural Oregon by electronic musician Chris Randall.

History

A late development on progressive house music, Grind house grew out of the club scene of rural Oregon in the winter of 2008. Detroit, Oregon and Mill City, Oregon were cut off from one another by record snowfalls that closed Highway 22, the road that joined the two cities. Musicians in Mill City tried to recreate the house-style music of Detroit. Cut off from the original inspiration, the music quickly evolved into what is now known as Grind house.

Early forms of Grind house were occasionally referred to as ElkLodge music, in reference to the private Elk's Club located near Mill City, Oregon.

Important Figures in Grind house Music

The Ten Commandments of Grind House

As outlined by Chris Randall and his moustache on his Analog Industries blog:

1: Thou Shalt Have A Monster Foot. Of course, the root of all house music is a 909 kick in a four-on-the-floor pattern. Grind House, since it is a sub-set of house, will have the same. However, our foot will be large. It should dominate the track entirely. In that light, the foot should have a healthy dose of plate reverb. But it needs to start life as a 909-flavored kick; that really goes without saying.
2: Thou Shalt Eschew Chord Progressions. Pick a fucking note and hammer that shit in to the ground. Chord progressions are for trance, and we hates trance.
3: Thou Shalt Lovingly Embrace Distortion. Grind House should be HARD. Think of it as powernoise with a more defined beat and, like, music and stuff. The square wave is your friend.
4: Thou Shalt Beat An MC About The Head And Shoulders With A Blunt Object. We are of the opinion that two things are true: a DJ knows how to spin records and the crowd knows how to dance. We don't need some meth-addled MC Cul-De-Sac up on the stage shouting at people, and asking for rewinds, and all that bullshit.
5: Thou Shalt Move At A Punk-Rock Clip. Grind House, because it is an aggressive form of house, shall be on the speedy side. Your happy place is between 140 and 150. You dip below 138 at your peril.
6: Thou Shalt Smash Thy VCR. Movie samples are so 1989. They shall be avoided like the plague that they are.
7: Thou Shalt Place Thy Bass In The Driver Seat. In Grind House, our bassline and our melody are the same motherfucking thing. Stack for attack.
8: Thou Shalt Glitch Thy Percussion. If it isn't a foot, it gets all fucked up. Get your favorite beat mangler and put it on every track.
9: Thou Shalt Restrain Thyself From 16-measure Snare Rolls. Grind House has sudden transitions. If someone wants gradual dynamics so they know when to spin their glowsticks and raise their arms, might we point them towards Ibiza?
10: Thou Shalt Break It Down. The breakdowns in Grind House, an essentially pad-free environment, shall be rhythmic in nature, with the glitchy beats.